(aka Not So Rigor Mortis)
	Man thought dead in Syria earthquake rubble comes back 
	to life at funeral -Jerusalem Post 3/3/23

I was eight when I first saw a dead body
it was Mom’s brother, Al. At the funeral home
I was terrified that he was going to suddenly 
bolt upright and begin talking directly to me.

Uncle Al’s was the first of six funerals 
in six successive years. First the phone call shaking us
like an earthquake in the middle of supper 
to let Mom know that Al had just chopped his last cord of firewood.

Uncle Joe was next, the phone rousing us to pray 
at 3 AM for a priest who certainly shouldn’t have needed
the prayers of a nine year old to open heaven’s gate for him.

The next four years it was the four grandparents, one each year. 
Mom’s parents back to back in ‘58 and ‘59. Then Grandma Maggie
died of leukemia. We kept vigil in her dining room during her last days.
Finally Grandpa Werstein, in 1961, mom calling me in from the backyard 
to give me the news. 

I was thirteen and by then getting used to death.
I didn’t worry about him waking up during the rosary.
                        

Thank you, my love, my teacher
for arriving when I need you most

here in my 70s mourning the sudden
departure of my last lost love

her We’re through! a bitter sting sending 
me into a downward spiral where

you were waiting for me, waiting
to envelop me in thoughts 

only of you, my dear one. 
What folly to have ever feared you! 

As I nestle into your surprising love
I know that at the end of this affair

only one of us will survive.

	from the prompt, “write a love letter to your biggest problem”.